On The Brink of Nowhere: A Client's Story of Psychotherapy (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781764094320)

'She seems to be destroying me on some level and saving me on another.'

Ophelia Wynters is on the verge of taking her own life. She has only recently started seeing a new therapist - one who seems calm, wise and incredibly available. The therapist persuades Ophelia not to act on her self-destructive impulses, and Ophelia starts to invest the therapist's every word and gesture with intensely personal meaning. For a considerable time, therapy seems to be working - but then it slowly unravels.

Wynters' story delivers a nuanced, revelatory and gut-wrenching account of being a client in therapy over the period of four years. Focusing heavily on the connection with her therapist, Wynters reveals her own vulnerabilities with a raw honesty that lays bare her most painful and terrifying thoughts and feelings. Every minute of every day becomes a struggle for Ophelia, fluctuating between feeling loved and hated, safe and unsafe, powerful and powerless.

Holding a Graduate Diploma in Counselling and a Master of Social Work degree, Wynters draws on an earlier time in her life when she was both receiving therapy and starting her own career in the industry.

Her story highlights the significant power dynamic, both real and perceived, inherent in the therapist-client relationship and serves as a powerful warning for both clients and practitioners about the potential consequences when a therapist loses sight of professional boundaries.